Annie - Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire's reputation as one of the great modern poets in French literature, his real name was Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, he was born near Rome on the 26 of August, 1880. He became a tutor and met a schoolteacher who turned down his offer of marriage; she was probably one of the “lost loves”, a major theme of his poems. When the World War I broke out he enlisted, and was severely wounded in 1916. He never completely recovered and two years later, he was too weak to overcome it and died. His most famous collections are: Alcools and Caligrammes, the latter of which was publish just after his death. Annie is one of his most representative poems the following table show its composition both English and French language.

Poems in french

Annie

Sur la côte du Texas
Entre Mobile et Galveston il y a
Un grand jardin tout plein de roses
Il contient aussi une villa
Qui est une grande rose

Une femme se promène souvent
Dans le jardin toute seule
Et quand je passe sur la route bordée de tilleuls
Nous nous regardons

Comme cette femme est mennonite
Ses rosiers et ses vêtements n’ont pas de boutons
Il en manque deux à mon veston
La dame et moi suivons presque le même rite

Guillaume Apollinaire

Annie

On the Texas coast
Between Mobile and Galveston there
A large garden full of roses
It also contains a villa
Which is a large pink

A woman often walks
In the garden alone
And when I go on the road lined with linden trees
We look

As this woman is Mennonite
Her roses and her clothes have no buttons
The two missing in my jacket
The lady and I follow almost the same rite

Guillaume Apollinaire